The Childing Autumn
by Tazlet
Summary: Holmes and Watson are called in on the hunt for Jack the Ripper. It's a slice of classic Sherlock Holmes and a bit of Ripper Street, salted with the merest soupçon of Lovecraft. A word to the wise—Jack the Ripper—if you can't do the crimes, don't do the time.


**The Childing Autumn  
**by Taz (aka Quisp)

I recall the autumn of 1888 as a season out of joint. The summer's heat lingered on into an unnaturally warm October that was productive of some of the worst London Particulars on record. Fog pressed on the city like the paw of some brute animal, choking and smothering the world. One could stretch out one's arm and lose the hand at the end of it. It was twilight at noon. People went about the streets with pale, apprehensive faces, finding their way by the sound of church bells. So unnatural was the season that many felt it pregnant with imminent calamity. They sought comfort and reassurance, and there was a revival of mysticism and interest in exotic religions. It became fashionable to consult one's spiritual advisor, to attend séances and lectures by so-called experts in the afterlife. Charlatans and frauds abounded. The rolls of the Theosophical Society doubled.

The general unease found its most disturbing focus, however, on the series of ghastly murders that were then being perpetrated in the slums of the East End. That autumn four women, all unfortunates, were slaughtered with increasing ferocity and, as the police failed to affect a capture, the daily papers expanded on each outrage as proof that the soul of the nation was afflicted with rot. They larded their pages with increasingly lurid speculation and beyond selling papers, their purpose was purely political. To the conservative press the murders proved the poor were incapable of improvement; much less of self-government; that foreign elements were attempting to incite anarchy; and, of course, that Irish republicanism must be stamped out. The radical and reactionary papers responded with accusations of incompetence and conspiracy. They opined that if it were wealthy women being slaughtered, the police would have the resources to do an effective job. There was speculation that the killer was being protected at the highest levels. There was fear of riot in the streets.

I watched my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, observe these developments behind a façade of ironic detachment, but I knew that he was profoundly disturbed. Through our connections at Scotland Yard, we were privy to facts of the murders of which the general public was wholly unaware, and even we did not have the full story. But the worst thing was that, having no contacts within those divisions of the Metropolitan Police in whose bailiwicks the murderers were being perpetrated, it seemed unlikely, given the natural jealousy of the professional detectives for the amateur, that Sherlock Holmes would be called upon to offer his insight in the case. I am pleased to say we were mistaken.

Our part in the events to which I allude began the first week in November. It was Bonfire Night, in fact, when our landlady, Mrs. Hudson, brought our dinner tray upstairs herself. She did it not so much for the pleasure of serving us as of communicating her immense satisfaction in having obtained a pair of tickets to Madame Blavatsky's lecture at the Theosophical Society that coming Friday. She took pains to assure us that our dinner for that evening had been arranged.

Knowing tickets for that lecture were much in demand, I congratulated her heartily. Holmes, however, said rather waspishly that if she and her friends insisted on wasting time and money on such twaddle, he hoped they would enjoy it. He then retreated behind a copy of the East London Observer, muttering about mystic mumbo-jumbo, while Mrs. Hudson gave a little sniff and stalked out of the room.

"That was uncalled for, Holmes," The whole thing was so out of keeping with his usual courtesy towards that lady that I couldn't help expostulating with him. "If you can't bear the prospect of a cold collation—which, allow me to point out, you've guaranteed—we can dine at the Royale."

"Whatever you like." Holmes fired from behind the barricades.

"Good God, Holmes! What's eating you?"

"Nothing!" He slapped the newspaper down in his lap. "Nothing whatsoever!" He glared at me; I gave it back. Then the complete disproportion of his reaction struck him. "Oh, Lord, Watson! I flatter myself in being impervious to flights of fear and fancy." He coloured up, laughing. "What arrogance. It seems I'm as pervious as the next man. I wish she weren't going. That hall is too close to Spittalfields."

"I'm sure she and her friend intend to take a cab."

"No doubt," he sighed. "It has been four weeks since the double murder of Elizabeth Stride and Katherine Eddowes. I ran into Inspector Lestrade at the White Horse today, and I asked him if there have been any developments in the case... I will spare us both by not repeating what he told me."

He then went down stairs and apologized to Mrs. Hudson.

While he was gone, I happened to pick up the paper he'd put aside. The header of one column said 'Why Was Not A Bloodhound Used?' Below that it said 'Homicidal Mania!' And the line below that 'Murders of Women in Texas – Is it the Same Man?'

Two nights later, we were not expecting visitors and had settled in for a quiet evening. I was reading, and Holmes was making a desultory effort to bring his common place book up to date. The mantle clock had just chimed ten o'clock when we heard the knocker on the front door. Holmes raised his head. "It can only be a client at this hour," he said.

The footsteps on the stairs seemed to confirm his supposition, but when the maid opened the door she had no need to announce Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.

"Here's a surprise!" said Holmes, sitting up. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"None," said Lestrade. "You'll forgive the lateness of the hour, Holmes, but the Yard has been called in, at last." He displayed a bulky file cast that he'd been carrying tucked under his arm, and Holmes' eyes lit up.

"Is that…?"

"It is," said Lestrade. "Do me the favor of not asking how I happen to have it."

"Never in this life." Holmes began clearing the table. "Bring it over here. You'll have a brandy and soda?"

"I won't say no." Lestrade set the case down, and proceeded to divest himself of coat and hat. "In fact, I recommend brandy all round. You may have need of it, gentlemen."

"Watson?" Holmes looked to me. "Will you do the honors?" I already had the Tantalus open.

As I poured and employed the seltzogene, Lestrade opened the file case. It proved to contain the first-on-scene constable's reports, the coroners' reports, interview notes, handwritten and recorded confessions (I was shocked at the number of those, far more the three that had been reproduced in the newspapers and post-bills). And the photographs… It was, in short, all of the material immediately relating to the East End murders. By that point, the police had interviewed over 1800 people and investigated 150 individuals, including 80 butchers and slaughterers. Not one person had been detained.

There was a massive amount of evidence, and most of it was useless. Still the three of us reviewed every document, until just after midnight, when exhausted we fell silent and sat simply absorbing the horror we had seen. _Dear God! those photographs…_

As we sat there, Homes slouched back in his chair, placed his fingertips together and stared into the distance. By and by, the familiar other-worldly expression came over his face—his analytical mind was fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. Knowing that, I could not help begging, "Tell us that you have a theory. This Ripper..."

Holmes started out of his trance. "The medical examiner is an imbecile! These assertions of expert medical knowledge… You can see for yourself that the killer hasn't even the technical knowledge of a butcher!"

"Then you g-guess…?" said Lestrade. His slight speech impediment had appeared, and become distinctly more pronounced during the evening.

"Never guess!" Holmes said. "Start with the known. We know that the man you are looking is possessed of great strength and cunning. He is European in appearance, low—if not of the lowest—class, and uneducated."

"How can you be so certain?" I seized on an objection. "Three of these interviews that the police give the greatest credence are reports of a carriage with a crest on it seen picking up two doxies."

"Noted because it was extraordinary! Some lord was out a-slumming. The man we are looking for walks the streets invisibly. His appearance does not excite comment, allowing him to approach his victims without alarming them. He knows the area well—the docks, warehouses, and warrens provide him with opportunity, as well as means of escape…" Holmes turned to Lestrade. "You might send to inquire if there have been similar murders in the Baltic ports—Stockholm, Helsinki, Danzig, Riga…"

"Why?"

"Consider the intervals between the murders! It's possible he's employed on a steamer making irregular cargo runs between London and the Baltic. If so, I doubt that he'd confine his hunting grounds to London."

"I shall telegraph immediately." Lestrade began gathering the papers back into the case. "If I have to drag the operator out of bed myself."

When Lestrade was gone, I found myself disinclined for conversation and, in any event, Holmes was shut off in that languid analytic trance. I announced that I was going to bed.

Sleep was impossible. As I lay there, my imagination persisted in presenting to my mind's eye the image of Catherine Eddowes' poor mutilated body. Finally, I got up with every intention of fixing myself another drink.

I found Holmes was in the alcove, leaning against the window frame, looking down at the street below. "What is it," I said.

"Murder weather," he said. The fog had crept back. The only sign of the buildings on the opposite side of the street was the diffuse yellow glow of their gas lights. The voice of St. John's was tolling the hour. "He's mutilating those women's bodies with some dark purpose; I don't know what it is, but he's not going to stop."

I slipped my arms about his waist, and let my head rest against his shoulder. "Come to bed, my dear. There's nothing to be done tonight."

Thursday morning, it was evident that the fog had settled over the city for a lengthy stay, but in the afternoon a telegram arrived from Lestrade, saying that he'd got a hit from Danzig and was awaiting the report from the authorities there.

Mid-morning Friday, we heard someone give the knocker a vigorous workout. The banging was followed by such a racket below that Holmes and I hurried into the hall to see what was up. We found Lestrade, a young plain clothes detective and a uniformed constable half-way up the stairs, while the maid was closing the door on the garlands of fog that were snaking their way inside. I can still see their pale faces looking up at us.

"What's happened?" said Holmes.

"There's b-been another," said Lestrade. "Insp-pector R-reid of H division r-requests…"

"We have a van," the detective said; it was not an invitation.

"Allow us a moment to get our coats," Holmes said. "We'll be right down." Once safe in the sitting room, he said, "Watson, I be overreacting, but please bring your service revolver with you."

"Of course," said I. The Webley was in my pocket when we climbed into the van.

Even before the door was secured, Lestrade banged on the roof and the driver started his horses. We clattered over the pavers, clinging to the hand straps, with the driver cursing the fog, and anything—pedestrian, growler, or hack—foolish enough to get in his way.

In spite of being shaken like dry peas in a jar, Holmes attempted to elicit information. "Where did it happen?"

"Whi-Whitechapel. D-Dorset S-Street," Lestrade said. "V-victim is Ma-Mary J-Jane K-k-k…" The struggle became too much for him. "T-tell h-him, F-Flight."

The younger detective, Flight, brought out his occurrence book, and read, "Victim is one Mary Jane Kelly," he read. "Her landlord, John McCarthy, states that she was behind on her rent. He sent his assistant, Thomas Bowyer, round to collect this morning. Receiving no answer to his knocked, Bowyer tried the door, found it locked but guessed she was home. Knowing that there was a broken window in the back, he went around and called in. Receiving no answer, again, he reached inside and pushed the curtain out of the way. That's when he saw the body." Flight snapped the cover of his notebook closed. "Bowyer went to McCarthy. McCarthy sent him to the Commercial Street Police Station."

"Do you know if the body was mutilated?" said Holmes.

"Yes." Flight looked away. Lestrade produced a pocket handkerchief and pressed it to his mouth. They were clearly unwilling to elaborate and Holmes did not press them.

I remember St. Mary's Matfelon tolling noon when we turned onto Bell Lane. The driver slowed and stopped at the corner of Dorset Street, which was too narrow for the van. A crowd had gathered in Dorset Street. Men and women, their figures vague and insubstantial, were everywhere on the pavers and flagging. They peeked out of the doors and passageways, and peered down from the first and second story windows. The fog had taken on an eerie, nacreous glow and I couldn't grasp their individual features but I sensed their sullen silent anger, and they gave way grudgingly as Lestrade pushed our way through.

There was an archway between number 26 and number 27. There, a reporter—the man had a pad and stub of pencil ready—waited to pounce. "You're Sherlock Holmes! Have the police called you in? Is this an admission that they're out of their depth. Who do you think—" He was blocking our way. Flight took him by the lapels and slammed him against the bricks. "Talk to me Holmes!" The manhandling didn't faze him in the least; he skipped away, saying, "I'll make it worth your time!" This time, Flight went after him with a truncheon. "The name's Fred Best. Best of the Gazette…!

"Little c-cockroach!" Lestrade said. A constable ran up. "What now?!"

"Vigilance Committee," the constable panted. "They won't let the mortuary van through until they see the body. Say they don't want the police hiding anything."

"Oh, they don't? We'll see about that!" To the officer barring the archway, Lestrade said, "Let these two through." To us, he said, "Down there. Number 13's on the right. I'll be along quick smart." He went off revived by the prospect of enlightening a few people as to the way things were. Holmes and I proceeded to the yard behind Dorset Street known as Miller's Court.

The world knows now that Mary Jane Kelly rented a room there, formerly the back parlor of 26 Dorset Street. It had been partitioned off with its own entrance. The only access to it was down a dank passageway. We felt our way along the mossy bricks toward voices coming from the other end and, as we debouched, a man with a much battered trilby on his head loomed in front of us.

"I don't know who let you in here," he said, in a flat American accent, "but do not take one more step." Then he called, "Reid!"

The head of H Division was already materializing. "You out! I said no reporters!"

"We're not reporters," Holmes began. "I'm—"

"I don't care what you are!" Reid had the look of a man who was sick of being lied to. Fortunately, Flight appeared at that moment. "It's him, Reid. That's Sherlock Holmes."

"Ooh, the famous detective?!" The man in the battered trilby mimed a whistle.

"Enough, Jackson!" Reid snapped.

"I'm Sherlock Holmes," said Holmes. "This is my associate, Dr. Watson."

Reid offered each of us a perfunctory handshake. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Holmes," he said. "My apologies for being brusque, and as my American, he's… not entirely useless."

"I have heard of Dr. Homer Jackson," Holmes said.

"My blushes," Jackson said.

"I said enough!" The inspector was a man at the end his rope. In that brief clasp of hands I felt the chill of his skin and observed that he was having trouble breathing. "I have my men going door to door. We are sweeping the streets, but we are out of our depth here and I will use every resource at my command—that this city has to command—to prevent another such abomination as occurred here..."

Reid's eyes rolled up; he was going into shock. I reached for him, as he staggered, but Jackson was already there. "Drake!" he shouted. "Reid's down!"

A sergeant appeared at Reid's other hand, and took his arm over his shoulder. "Lean on me, Sir," he said, and began to leading him away into the fog. "Get your head under the pump, and you'll be right as rain."

"Get his head between your legs, Drake," Jackson muttered as they vanished in the fog. "That'll bring him round." He caught my look, and shrugged. "He takes these things too seriously." To the just-arriving Lestrade, he said, "Photographer's finished. Will you do the honors, or shall I?"

Lestrade took one glance at the open doorway, quickly looked away and made use of his handkerchief.

"Guess I get to show you boys around," Jackson said in disgust. "I hope you have stronger stomachs than this bunch of fairies."

We still had to wait for him to pat his pockets until he located a pack of ready-rolls and a tin of matches. "Smoke?" Holmes and I declined. "Each his own." Jackson gave another shrug, lit his cheroot, and finally we were allowed to see the scene of Mary Jane Kelly's death.

I have seen the bodies of British soldier after the Afghani women were finished with them. Even with that, even after seeing the photographs and reading the post-mortem reports of the other murders, I could not have imagined...

It was a tiny room, squalid and dark. The smell was of a slaughterhouse. We had to slide in sideways—a table and bed had been jammed together at an angle that prevented the door from opening fully—to the middle of the floor, before Jackson could shut the door and shut out the glare. As my eyes adjusted to the glim, thrills of electricity raced up the back of my legs.

"Cause of death…?"

"Exsanguination." Jackson gave a sigh. "Sorry 'bout the mess."

I have learned since, from people who knew her, that Mary Jane Kelly was a pretty, buxom girl with red hair and blue eyes. There was nothing of that beauty left. The body was naked, the legs spread wide, and the head turned to the left, facing us. Those blue eyes—as if protesting her humiliation—stared at us accusingly from a skull from which all of the skin had been removed. There was a spray of arterial blood on the wall behind her head, and pool of blood beneath the bed. Her throat had been cut down to the vertebrae. As to the rest: her breasts had been removed—one lay on her right shoulder, one on the table. The thoracic cavity had been opened and emptied—the viscera were piled on the bed and table. The skin and flesh of her thighs had been flayed to the bone… I could not bring myself to look closely at what was hanging from a hook in the ceiling.

"This bed has been moved," Holmes observed, dispassionately.

"The City boys broke the door down and let the photographer in before we got here," Jackson said. "Wouldn't be surprised if they had a party."

"Is anything missing?"

"The heart and womb." Jackson's hand shook as he took a drag on his cheroot. "Funny you should ask."

Holmes turned about, and scanned the rest of the room. "She fell asleep, or else passed out, before he cut her throat. Is it known if there was anyone with whom Miss Kelly was intimate?"

"She didn't have a boyfriend or a pimp; if that's what you're asking."

"She knew her killer."

"How can you tell?"

"She undressed without hurry, and lay down trustingly in the presence of her killer. "Her chemise and petticoat are still folded neatly," Holmes indicated a chair. "But where are the rest of her clothes?"

All of us looked about. The cupboard next to the fireplace was open and empty—there was no bonnet, shirtwaist or cloak…

"Maybe the killer wore them," I suggested. "His would be covered with blood."

"No." Holmes took a step to the fireplace and knelt beside the grate. It was full of ashes. With a pen he probed, and drew out a scrape of black crepe. "He burned her clothes for the light to work by."

Jackson hunkered down beside him and held his hand close to the grate. "Still warm. It must have been hellish in here."

"Hot enough to melt solder." Holmes tapped the spout of a teapot with his pen. It had separated from the teapot, rolled to the edge of the hearth and come to rest against a ridge of what looked to be pale clay. Holmes broke off a piece of the material, crumbled it in his hand and smelled it. "He scraped his boots on the bricks." Holmes held his hand out to Jackson. "What do you make of that?"

"Can't smell a thing, but…" Jackson stuck a fingertip in the material, tasted it and spat. "Potash."

I moved closer and the three of us trawled the floorboards near the fireplace. Jackson focused on a set of gouges. The marks were oval, lighter in color than other scratches in the wood, and much more recent.

"Do those look like heel marks to you?"

"Yes! See the imprint of the nails. He goes iron shod. We're looking for a man who works in a heavy trade."

"What's that?" I said. As they were speaking, a tiny gleam between two of the boards had caught my eye.

"Where?" said Holmes

"There." I pointed it out.

With his pocketknife Holmes pried a scrap of grey-brown metal from between the boards. "Watson, you have the eyes of an eagle." The thing was barely larger than the head of a pin. Holmes weighed it in the palm of his hand, and then held it out to Jackson.

"Don't mind if I do." Jackson popped it into his mouth, rolled it about and then bit down. I winced. "For God's sake, you'll break a tooth."

Jackson spat it out, and said, "Bell metal."

At that moment, the door opened and the form of Inspector Reid filled the frame. "The men from the morgue are here with the shell. I want her out of here, before…" He stopped speaking as the three of us rose to our feet. "What?"

"The man's good," was the only thing that Jackson said, but Reid swooped on it.

"You have something!" he demanded of Holmes.

"Possibly," Holmes said. "Is there a foundry in the area?"

"Drake?" Reid called behind him. "Where's the foundry"

"Whitechapel Road," Drake's answer came. "By the sign of The Three Bells."

"Find me Flight!" Reid was gone.

Moments later came the sound of a whistle. I could hear Lestrade calling, "Where's Sergeant Wainwright, and Constantine!"

"Well that's set him off." Jackson let out another sigh. "Let's get out of here and let the mortuary boys do their jobs."

I have never in my life been happier to be out of a place. The air in Miller's Court reeked of the warrens of Whitechapel, but it was purity itself compared with that vile room. We got as far from it as we could, and discovered the communal pump against a wall in the middle of the courtyard. It was a relief to splash cold water on my face. Jackson leaned back against the bricks and pulled out his pack of ready-rolls. This time, neither Holmes nor I refused his offer.

Reid was giving instructions to his sergeants. "Keep the patrols going door-to-door, but start moving east, no man alone…" Men ran. "…I want the windows covered and two men posted at the door. No one gets in. If anyone asks, they may confirm that Sherlock Holmes will be coming to the station to make a statement, by and by." There were whistles shrilling in the distance. "Jackson!"

"No need to shout!"

"You're with me!"

Jackson grunted. "You boys feel like a drink?"

Holmes gave a dry chuckle. "I wouldn't say no."

We waited until the pitiful remains of Mary Jane Kelly had been taken away, and then took ourselves out to Dorset Street. Much of the crowd had disbursed, but 'Best, of the Gazette' was still there, scribbling away on his pad. As soon as we appeared heading for the van that was waiting at the corner, he thrust himself at us. "What did you discover Mr. Holmes?"

Reid stepped between. "There will be a statement issued, shortly," he said.

Best tried to get around him. "I will talk to Holmes!"

"You will not," said Reid. "Get this man out of my way!" Two constables seized the reporter, while we squeezed into the van. It was a close fit with Lestrade, Flight, and Drake, as well as four constables already on the benches. Flight was marking a map. Reid was last in, and I heard him tell the driver, "Leman Street."

We drove off, and Best was still shouting, "The public has a right to know! You can't keep the facts to yourself!"

"Watch me," Reid said. "That man spreads rumour like the plague."

"He is the plague," Drake said.

Flight looked up from his map. "Every murder took place no more than ten minutes' walk from the foundry."

Reid closed his eyes, and I wondered if he was praying.

The van turned south onto Commercial Street, but when we reached the High Street Reid banged on the roof, and instead of proceeding to Leman Street we turned east onto Whitechapel Road. A quarter of a mile on, just past Adler Street, we came to a halt in front of the Three Bells Pub. The office of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry was on the corner.

Reid directed Drake, Flight and his constables round the side of the building that fronted Plumber's Row. The rest of us went in the front.

A bell chimed as we entered; clerks looked up; a portly man in a leather apron, climbing a flight of stair at the back of the room, ducked back down to look at us. His flowing side whiskers practically bristled with curiosity. I don't imagine foundries get much foot traffic.

"Who is in charge!" said Reid.

"I'm William Wariskitt, the manager," said the man on the steps. "May I help you, gentlemen?"

"I am Inspector Reid, CID. I seek a man in your employ who may have recently traveled to Danzig."

"Our casting master, Robert Mott, has just returned from that city. We took an order from the church of Saint Sigismun—"

"Where is he?" Reid said.

"In the foundry. We're casting today."

"Where!?" Reid roared.

Wariskitt pointed a finger at the ceiling, and then flung himself over the handrail as we assailed the stairs.

The foundry floor is a blur in my memory—a litter of forms and copes, stacks of ingots, huge machines, but chiefly heat and the smell of molten metal. The foundry workers, swathed as they were, in heavy leather coats, hoods and gloves, didn't realize we were among them. Their entire object was the two men on the platform at that mouth of the furnace, lifting up a glowing crucible and guiding it with iron poles. On that colorless, lifeless, day the thing blazed like the sun, taking nearly every eye.

Reid pointed and cried, "Robert Mott! I place you under arrest!"

One of the men guiding the crucible gave the other a shove off of the platform and then tipped the crucible. Molten bronze spilled over the lip like a waterfall. I heard a scream I shall never forget as it seared the man who had been monitoring the furnace. It flowed across the floor, seeping through the cracks, and the boards began to smoke. The foundry men, trained as they were for emergencies, reacted by running for barrels of sand with which to smother the smoke and dam the flow. They cursed us for being in their way, and in the chaos the man on the platform swung himself over the side and ran to the pair of doors wide open above the foundry yard. There was a crane fixed to the roof with which to lower the finished bells into freight wagons. The man jumped, seized one of the ropes and went down hand-over-hand like a monkey. By the time we had reached the drop he had vanished.

There was no hope of the rest of us following, except for Jackson who didn't hesitate. Reid yelled, "No!" as he leaped for the rope. But Jackson, too, was gone.

Drake pulled out his whistle and blew a great blast. We strained to hear. Seconds later came the shrilling answers from Plumber's Lane. There were more whistles in the distance and I remembered Reid's instructing his sergeants to have the patrols move eastward.

No one in the foundry made any attempt to stop us—they were far too occupied. We ran out and rounded the corner, following the sound of the whistles, pelting through angled, ancient forgotten lanes—Dark Entry, Cat's Hole Street, Shit-burn Alley, Poke Skirt Lane—the way was labrynthian, the fog distorted one's senses.

Slowed by the old hitch in my leg, I fell behind, but followed as best I could. Once I head the distinctive bells of All-Hallows-by-the-Tower to my left and the bells of the Sailor's Church much closer in front of me. I knew we were near the river, but not how near until I found myself surrounded by weeds up to my ankles in muck. I had plunged blindly into the boggy strip of wasteland north of St. Katherine's Docks. The medieval hospital of St. Katherine's-by-the-tower had been razed early in the century to create the basin, and a part of the precinct remained undeveloped. Littered with ruins, wells and cellars, all of them shrouded with fog that day, it was a dangerous place.

"Spread out." I heard Reid's spectral voice. "Be careful."

"Holmes!" I called.

"Over here! Careful!"

As if to underscore the warning, there was shout and a scream of rage, followed by some highly creative swearing.

"Flight?!" Drake was calling. "Flight!"

"Here, Sir!" Another voice shouted. "He's down a ditch."

Treading carefully in the muck I followed the voices. To my, I relief found Holmes standing on the hump of an old culvert.

"I'm fine," I responded to the question in his eyes as I limped up. "Where's Mott?"

"Gone to earth," said Holmes, giving my arm a quick squeeze. "Let me have your revolver."

I passed it to him, and we slid and stumbled down the side of the culvert. Reid and Drake were at the bottom, along with the constable who was helping Flight to his feet. Flight was covered with mud. The culvert had been blocked with weeds and rubble, but there was a hole barely big enough for a grown man to wiggle. Drake was crouching there, going at it like a badger.

Jackson came hobbling up. I don't know if he had collided with a fist or a stone wall but his left eye was already swelling shut. He took one look at that hole said, "_Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate._" He wasn't the only man thinking so, with the foul breeze blowing out.

"Stand back, Sgt. Drake," Holmes said.

Drake stood back; Holmes picked up a pebble, tossed it into the hole and began to count. Immediately there was the sound of it striking something hard, inspiring conjecture on every man's face.

"There has to be another way in, Sir," Drake said.

"This is the one we've got," Reid cried. "Where is the van?"

Immediately constable had scrambled half-way up the slope, blowing his whistle. There came an answering shrill, surprisingly close, and Lestrade's voice came back, "Where are you?"

"Over here!" Drake called back. "We need the shovels and a lantern!"

"Van's here!" Another voice shouted.

Holmes was already removing his coat.

"You know I'm afraid of close, dark spaces," Jackson said.

"Shut up!" Reid said. "Not you, or Holmes. I'm not looking for volunteers. Flight's already filthy.

"Ah, shite!" Flight said, with feeling. I sympathized with him. The thought of descending into the bowels of the earth inspired atavistic horror.

"Get in there!" Reid said.

"Where's the lantern?"

"I have them," said a voice above us. "Where are you?"

"Here!" Drake climbed up and slid down, clutching a pair of dark lanterns by their wire handles. Flight exchanged his hat for one of them. When it was lit, he got down on his belly and slithered, inch by inch, into the hole. Half in and half out, he paused, then gave a wriggle and was in. A moment later his voice came out of the earth. "It's a tunnel, Mr. Reid! There's steps!"

"Where are those shovels? I need this cleared!" Reid roared and raved, and then went at it again with his own hands, pulling up loose rocks and dirt until, at last, the fire shovels were handed down. After that it was short work to make the opening large enough to for a man to fit through if he crouched.

Drake went first, after Flight, then Reid, and then Holmes. I was not to be left behind, nor apparently was Jackson despite his disclaimer. Lestrade remained behind, to make it larger.

There was a short drop on the other side. Holmes caught me and I was momentarily beguiled to see his face clearly. We were out of the obscuring fog, standing under an arched vault on the landing of an ancient stairway that wound downward, and from whence that charnel air was blowing. Flight and Drake had already gone partway down to make room for the rest of us. Reid was next.

"Be careful," he said, as the rest of us started to follow. There was reason for the warning. The vault was so low that neither Reid nor Holmes nor I could stand upright, and the narrow angled treads had been hollowed by centuries of feet.

As we descended, at one point the bobbing lantern light revealed changes in the composition of the wall, and the treads, thankfully, broadened slightly, although they were still more uneven. I had counted about thirty of these wider steps when Drake, stopped, saying, "What the hell is that?!"

We had reached the bottom and Flight's lantern was shining on a mosaic floor. The image that the tesserae picked out in red and black was a winged phallus. Drake edged himself out along the wall so that his boot didn't touch the thing.

"It's Roman," said Jackson, who was behind him. "It's good luck." He stepped right in the middle of it. Holmes followed him without hesitation, and I followed Holmes.

We were in a room containing a well and two ancient tombs. There was a pile of white robes, and a four leather scourges, it should be noted, laying on the top of one those tombs. Reid picked up one of the scourges. I confess that my skin crawled, and could not help whispering, "Dear God." The thongs were black with blood and scraps of flesh still clung to them. Reid quickly put the thing down.

The current of air was blowing stronger down here, somewhere there had to be a vent, but the only light came from the lanterns, and perforce all that we could see was what showed in their bull's-eyes. We skirted the tombs and passed through a doorway into a long narrow room. There was a center aisle and benches running along either side. Flight passed his lantern over the barrel ceiling. I saw the wheel of the heavens and a god descending in a chariot in the painted plaster.

"What is this place?" said Reid.

"A mithraeum," said Jackson, staring round in fascination. "A chapel to their soldier's god. They worshiped underground."

"Bloody heathens," said Drake.

"It's in use," said Reid.

"Not by any Roman," said Jackson. "They sacrificed animals, and an unwilling sacrifice would have been anathema."

Holmes and I kept silent. I will not speak for him, but I was oppressed with knowing the source of that putrefying reek was in the room with us.

The eye of Reid's lantern found an alcove containing a small statue set into the wall. There was something in the shadows in front of it. The light revealed an altar with a carving on it of a man in a cap sacrificing a bull. Flight dropped his lantern on a bench and bent over comprehensively sick. It was our horror and disgust—our shock—at what lay on that altar that allowed Mott to attack. He came out of the shadows, straight at Reid, knocking him heavily to floor. The lantern rolled, spilling its oil in a flaming pinwheel. Flight seized his lantern but the beam flew about the room, adding to the confusion of light and shadow. I saw the glitter on the edge of a knife, and the muzzle flash of a gun.

Mott gave a grunt like an animal as the bullet struck, but his madness had given him unnatural strength of purpose. The knife rose, Holmes fired again, and Mott collapsed on top of Reid.

Drake, Jackson and I pulled the body away. Reid was alive, gasping and groping at the spreading blackness at his side. Deafened by the gun shots, Jackson mouthed at me, "He's cut."

After that, like the foundry men responding to the emergency before them, my concentration was all for saving Reid's life. I have no clear sense of the sequence in which Lestrade appeared, or the men who brought the stretcher down and carried Reid to the surface.

A seagull flying over St. Catherine's field at three o'clock that afternoon would have been startled by the sight of two filthy, though otherwise perfectly respectable, middle-age men, a mud covered hobbledehoy, and a shabby guy in a bottle-green jacket and battered hat reposing in various attitudes according to taste, on a grassy hump that could have been mistaken for a culvert. Holmes and I were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Flight was lying on his back. Jackson sat cross-legged like a Red Indian with his head down, smoking. Drake had gone with Ried in the van that took him to the hospital; it was likely he would live. The wind carried the sound of church bells across the field, calling people home, and blowing the fog away, at last. A blessed patch of blue appeared overhead. Just enough to patch a sailor's pants Flight said, holding his hand up to measure it.

Lestrade came up where we were resting, and said, "You lot look regularly done."

"Yeah, well…" Jackson_ flicked the butt of his cheroot at the_ stretcher that was passing, bearing away the body of Robert Mott._ "One less disturber of the human race."_

_"Force owes you, Holmes," Lestrade said. "Drake told me how it went down. If you hadn't kept your wits about you…"_ He pulled a flask from his breast pocket, uncorked it and handed it to Holmes. Holmes took a drink and passed it to me. I drank and passed it to Flight, who sat up for his share and passed it to on Jackson. No one felt like saying what was on all of our minds: the pursuit of Mott, Reid's assault, the shooting…? With Mott dead, unless further investigation revealed something to connect him directly to the murders, the evidence of him being the Ripper was circumstantial. He had run, and we had chased. As to those vile remains… I will not say further about that.

On our return to Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson took one look at us—reeking, begrimed and exhausted—and declared her intension of staying home to prepare us a nourishing dinner: oysters, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding… We failed to do justice to the meal, unfortunately, and Holmes retired early.

Later, when I saw the light under his door, I looked in on him. He was awake, as I'd feared. The effects of shock on a man who experiences the world with his whole being are less than on the man who, like Holmes, lives wholly in his mind. I have seen Holmes break.

"What are you reading?" I said.

"Browning." He smiled and showed me a brown leather volume. "A highly soporific poet, although that quality seems to be in abeyance tonight."

"Let me fix you something, old fellow."

"No." He shook his head; then shifted to make room. "I'd rather you stayed. Would you mind?"

"Not at all."

I put out the light, and settled back against the headboard. It was nothing like as black in the bedroom as it had been in that underground sanctuary, but the imaginative faculty is most powerful in the dark. Holmes pressed his head above my heart and fit himself against me. Gradually, I could feel the strain leaving his body. When he took my hand and pressed a kissed into my palm was when I turned his face to mine and bent my head to kiss his mouth. I kissed him, and again, from my need, fixed on his lips and the sensitive nerves round his mouth. He replied—first by the submissive welcoming of my tongue—and, then as I poked and provoked—the game's afoot!—his appetite roused. Ravening hunger and feverish intention—to feel his power asserted, to be the object of that single-minded intent is my greatest privilege.

I will try, though, to describe what it's like to be taken, turned, and put to the use of Sherlock Holmes. There's no shame when he touches the most shameful part of me. He wets me with his tongue, fills me with his fingers, his rod, and his staff—there is no blasphemy—for that moment, brief as it is, until we are busted and bankrupt, I see the world with his eyes, and he is not alone.

_Finis_


End file.
